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Dr. Kamana Beamer

Kamanamaikalani Beamer, PhD, is a full professor in the Hui ʻĀina Momona Program at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa. He serves a dual appointment in the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge and in the William S. Richardson School of Law as part of Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. Dr. Beamer’s research interests and publications focus on indigenous agency, governance, Native Hawaiian land tenure, Hawaiian resource management, and land and resource law of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Dr. Beamer has an ongoing international collaboration in the study of the Circular Economy (CE) in partnership with colleagues from the University of Augsburg. This international knowledge exchange has guided recent work exploring how aloha ʻāina as an indigenous philosophy, and the CE as a modern economic approach, can inform each other in enacting systemic economic change.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Beamer was the president and chief executive officer of The Kohala Center. Beamer’s research on governance, land tenure, and Hawaiian resource management, as well as his prior work as the director of ‘Āina-Based Education at Kamehameha Schools, prepared him for his continuing service as a director of Stanford University’s First Nations Futures Institute, a resource management development program for indigenous leaders developed by Stanford, Kamehameha Schools, and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in New Zealand.

Beamer has revitalized and maintained lo‘i kalo (taro ponds), providing him and his children opportunities to mālama ‘āina, deepen connections with cultural traditions, and derive leadership lessons from the land.

In 2013 he was nominated and confirmed to a four-year appointment on Hawai‘i’s Commission of Water Resource Management and was reconfirmed in 2017 for an additional four-year term.

In addition to numerous academic publications, in 2014 Beamer published No Mākou ka Mana: Liberating the Nation, which received multiple awards including the Samuel M. Kamakau Book of the Year Award from the Hawai‘i Book Publishing Association.

Dr. Beamer is an ‘Ōiwi, Aloha ‘Āina, farmer, author, songwriter, advocate of the Circular Economy, and now serves as the Dana Naone Hall Chair in the UH Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge.

Blog Posts

ʻĀina

Aloha Kuamoʻo ʻĀina

April 1, 2023